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Best Practices for High Availability Deployments

Use the following best practices as a starting point for planning a high availability infrastructure.

Profile 1: Uninterrupted Global Deployment

This deployment has several hundred to tens of thousands of users worldwide requiring the Siebel application to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

• Siebel Server load balancers. A dedicated third-party HTTP load balancer is recommended for this type of deployment. If you are using hardware load balancers, then set up redundant load balancers. Verify that, if a load balancer fails, then the remaining load balancers can provide acceptable performance under high workloads.
• Siebel Gateway Name Server. A dedicated, clustered server pair is recommended for this component. It can also reside on Siebel Servers in an existing cluster. Sharing the clustered servers has a minimal performance impact.
• Siebel File System. Consider deploying fault-tolerant and resilient file systems to host the files. Clustering the server that hosts the Siebel File System is also an appropriate strategy. The File System is restricted to one for each Siebel Enterprise Server. Therefore, you cannot use load balancing.
• Web servers. Set up load balancing using one of the standard HTTP load balancers certified by Oracle. Set up the Web server load balancer to allow user requests to failover to other Web servers. Verify that, if a load balancer fails, the remaining load balancers can provide acceptable performance under high workloads.
• Siebel Servers hosting an Application Object Manager. Use load balancing for Siebel Servers hosting an Application Object Manager. Consider Application Object Manager or server failure when doing capacity planning. For example, if each Siebel Server can handle 500 users, and you typically have 1500 concurrent users, then consider providing four Siebel Servers to handle this load. If one server fails, then the other three servers can still support user loads.

  The Siebel Product Configuration Object Manager is an exception. It includes an internal load balancing mechanism.

• Siebel Servers hosting other types of components. Enable batch components on multiple Siebel Servers. Server Request Broker routes requests to these components, thus providing resilient processing for batch requests.

  Some components can be hosted on only one Siebel Server, for example Siebel Remote. If user loads permit, then you set up high availability as follows:

  • For the Application Object Manager and related components, use load balancing.
  • For the components that can be installed on only one server, use server clustering.
• Siebel database. Deploy the high availability clustered services provided or supported by the vendor of your RDBMS.

  To guarantee data availability and integrity, use data replication techniques such as mirroring and disk arrays to keep the backup instance of the database in sync with the primary instance.

  Also consider fault-tolerant file systems to host database files.

Profile 2: Large Domestic Deployment

This deployment has several hundred to several thousand users in an Enterprise deployment that is operational during standard business hours only.

• Load balancers. If you are using hardware-based third-party HTTP load balancers, then set up redundant load balancers. Verify that, if a load balancer fails, the remaining load balancers can provide acceptable performance under high workloads.
• Web server. Set up at least two load-balanced Web servers for high availability.
• Siebel Servers hosting an Application Object Manager. You can use either a third-party HTTP load balancer or Siebel native load balancing. Third-party HTTP load balancers typically offer more management capabilities, while Siebel native load balancing is less complex to set up and maintain. Use load balancing for Siebel Servers hosting an Application Object Manager.

  Consider Application Object Manager or server failure when doing capacity planning. For example, if each Siebel Server can handle 500 users, and you typically have 1500 concurrent users, then consider providing four Siebel Servers to handle this load. If one server fails, then the other three servers can still support user loads.

• Siebel Servers hosting other types of components. Same as Profile 1.
• Siebel Gateway Name Server. A dedicated, clustered server pair is recommended for this component, which can also reside with the Siebel Server in an existing cluster. Sharing the clustered servers has minimal performance impact.
• Siebel File System. Deploy a clustering technology that has been certified by Oracle. At a minimum, use a RAID 5 disk array for your file system. In addition, make regular backups of your data.
• Siebel database. Deploy a clustering solution supported by your RDBMS vendor. To guarantee data availability and integrity, use data replication techniques such as mirroring and the disk arrays to keep the backup instance of the database in sync with the primary instance.

Profile 3: Limited Resources Deployment

This deployment has 500 users or less and operates during standard business hours with limited hardware resources.

Consider collocating multiple Siebel Servers and Web servers on a single computer. Use load balancing for each server type to achieve high availability at minimal cost. Siebel native load balancing for the Siebel Servers works well in this configuration.

To establish high availability, consider putting the Siebel deployment in a two-system cluster. At minimum, make sure that the Siebel Gateway Name Server, Siebel database, and Siebel File System are clustered.

Profile 4: Application Integration Deployment

This deployment uses third-party application servers to access the Siebel application. There are multiple integration points between Siebel applications and other, third-party applications. This profile might use Siebel EAI extensively.

There are no unique high availability requirements for this profile. See the previous discussions of the other profiles.

Make sure that the third-party applications are highly available by reviewing the specifications published by those vendors.

If you use multiple load-balanced Siebel Servers, then review the recommendations for Profile 2.